


Ithil

by HASA_Archivist



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Post-War of the Ring, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-19
Updated: 2015-04-19
Packaged: 2018-03-24 20:52:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3783990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HASA_Archivist/pseuds/HASA_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What price would you pay to capture the moon?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ithil

**Author's Note:**

> Note from the HASA Transition Team: This story was originally archived at [HASA](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Henneth_Ann%C3%BBn_Story_Archive), which closed in February 2015. To preserve the archive, we began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in February 2015. We posted announcements about the move, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this author, please contact The HASA Transition Team using the e-mail address on the [HASA collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/hasa/profile).

  


  


  


  


Prologue: Moon Cradle

  


  


Softly, the night breezes whispered and beckoned through the trees, rustling the golden leaves until they danced upon silver branches to an unheard song beating with the wind. Haldir lay his head against the tree wherein he was  comfortably sitting with his long bow rested across his lap. his eyes were closed, but not in sleep, only in a deep, silent reverie that soothed his mind and tore at his heart. He listened with wondrous intent to the windsong, and let each of its sweet caresses envelope every part of him. With a sigh, the edhel looked into the sky to see the moon rising to her throne, the very last rays of sunlight washing over the Celebrant before they disappeared behind grey mountains in the west.  

  


Silent at his post Haldir rose to his feet, peering through the golden Mallorn leaves to the darkening sky above his golden head. It was very quiet, like the breath of the world had been stolen away,or was being held, waiting to be released with a great exhalation of something terrible. Perhaps the wind blew to soothe the earth. Haldir felt the trunk of the tall mallorn sway a bit and he looked down to see his younger brother standing on a limb below him, looking up at the sky as well. 

  


"Do you feel the change in the earth as I do?" Rumil asked, calling up to his brother with mystery in his voice, "I have not felt such a stillness in the earth in a long age." 

  


Haldir nodded slowly, closing his eyes as he sheathed his bow over his back and looked down to Rumil once more. "She is silent and still..." Haldir said thoughtfully, but he breathed deep and sighed. Upon releasing his breath he said: "Perhaps she is taking in the beauty of this night, as I am, and as well you should. There has not been a night with winds this clear in as long as it has been since the earth stood still. Relish it, brother, before the beauty fades away." 

  


"I cannot take joy in this night, for there is something in the wind that tells me something is going to happen..." Rumil's voice trailed into nothingness.

  


"But see Ithil and her beauty!" Haldir smiled faintly, his grey eyes glinting in the moonlight, as did his silver locks and fair countenance. "Oh, that I could have the moon, that I could take it from the sky and she would be mine!" 

  


"To steal the moon would be to steal from Aulë." 

  


"Should even Vala Aulë have such a flower to himself?" Haldir laughed, shaking his head slightly as he leapt down to the bough upon which his brother stood, grinning as if with amusement. "Ah, but do not listen to me, for I know my wish is folly. And I did not know this by the mockery in your eyes!" 

  


But no sooner had Haldir finished laughing than a great rumble shook through the sky and cast him from the bough he had stood upon. The elf cried out and landed on his hands and knees, gasping for breath. Such great force had shot through him that his breath was stolen away and he remained upon the ground for a moment or two to regain his strength. 

  


Frightened, the elf looked around him, as if he expected the invisible force to be a physical body. But he saw no one save for Rumil, who had been pressed against a mallorn tree, his eyes wide and terrified as he, too, searched blindly for the invisible assailant. After a moment had passed and the trees stopped their shivering, Haldir rose to his feet, though he had not fully recovered his breath. Never in all his years had he felt such a blow to his body!  A tremor shook the earth, a quiver, a small shake that only the elves could feel beneath their feet, and the two brothers looked to the ground with curious eyes as they watched the grass shudder, the roots of the Mallorn trees disclosing themselves as earth was shaken from them. Haldir's eyes widened and he fell to his knees, covering his head. "Down! It comes once more!" He cried, and Rumil fell to his knees as well, clutching the mallorn he had so trustingly leaned against. 

  


Once more the air trembled and a second blow struck the atmosphere like a great pair of fists rushing together, causing all the winds to rage and boughs of the Mallorn to break and fall to the ground. The two elves covered their heads, feeling the ground shake and move beneath them. Amid the roaring wind and raging currents, Haldir lifted his face to the sky, searching for an answer to this sudden attack. A sound like a great thunder clap felled him to his breast, and he lie flat upon the ground as a third wave of rushing wind struck he and his brother down. 

  


Then a wave of white light blinded the two elves as they cowered on the forest floor, and a roar that had never been heard by any creature in Middle Earth released upon the world as the air seemed to shatter like glass until nothing could be seen for the brightness of the alien light, and nothing could be heard over the volume of the noise rending the skies torn. Haldir cried out to his brother, but he could even hear his own voice. His breast seemed as if it would shatter, his entire body compressed against the earth as wave after wave of terrorizing, blasting wind ripped through the Mallorn trees. But he could not see their shadows bend in the wind, for the light was as bright as the sun, as if it had fallen into Arda out of its place of slumber for the night. It seemed as if only seconds had passed before the light began to fade and the raging winds died to a seeping ebb, gracing the golden leaves they had sought to shatter before. As suddenly and frighteningly as the chaos had begun, it ended, and the tension that had beset the world was softened. 

  


Haldir heard his brother gasp for breath and cough violently. Rumil scrambled to his feet, and his elder brother rose to his knees, running his hands through his hair as he, too, fought for breath and sighed deeply, his exhalation trembling. Haldir rose shakily the rest of the way to his full stature and fell against a wall of shrubbery, falling through it as if he were a drunken madman. Rumil stifled a chuckle and walked precariously to where his brother lay floundering on the ground. The wave of light had foiled his senses, and his trembling footing did not support the grace of his step nor the weight of his body. 

  


"Let me lie here for a moment." Haldir breathed, covering his face with his hands, which he found to be oddly wet with sweat. Rumil laughed and turned away. 

  


Haldir let his hands fall at his sides, his eyes closed as he struggled to regain his sight, which had been temporarily stolen from him by the blinding rays of light. "Lo! It seemed as if Ea would sigh to release her tension! Now she breathes once more!" 

  


Haldir had expected to hear Rumil say something, or reply in some gesture, but instead he heard nothing. "Rumil?" Haldir rose to his elbows, seeing his brother standing before him still, but Rumil's face was turned upward toward the sky and such a look of fear and awe was upon his face that it made Haldir wonder what was causing such a reaction. The eldest brother stood fully and went beside his brother, looking up to the sky as well in the direction Rumil gazed so fearfully. His jaw was dropped and his eyes wide. But Haldir saw nothing. 

  


"Do you see?" Rumil asked, but Haldir shook his head. 

  


"Look once more, Haldir, and tell me what do you see..." Rumil's voice trembled and he pointed his finger to a void area of the night sky where no stars gathered and it was only blackness. "...or rather, what you do not see." 

  


Haldir looked for a long moment but still he saw nothing. It took the effort of his brother as Rumil traced a circle with the end of his outstretched finger to make Haldir realize that the vacant spot in the sky had once been the seat of the moon. Lo! For now she had disappeared and was nowhere in her vast kingdom, no matter where the two brothers looked. 

  


"The...the moon has gone..." Haldir could not speak, for he was too shocked. "She is... is... she is..." 

  


"Gone." Rumil finished saying what Haldir could not as he walked in an aimless circle, staring blankly into the emptiness of the void sky.

  


"Bright light..." Haldir reasoned, "... such a terrible sound... could... could only mean...." 

  


Rumil stopped his pacing and stood still, staring at his brother with an unchanging blankness in his usually bright eyes. "The moon has been taken from the sky." He said, but then his eyes hardened. Haldir met his piercing gaze with a terror in his eyes that signified he understood what Rumil had said. "I... I wished..." 

  


"You did this!" Rumil said with quiet rage. His soft eyes were cold and unfaltering as he held his elder brother's gaze with a stern discipline. "You stole the moon from Aulë!" And with those final words Rumil rushed upon Haldir and grasped his shoulders firmly, shaking the already quite shaken elf. Haldir saw that Rumil was right. 

  


"I do not have it now! I know not where it has gone!" Perhaps Rumil shook sense into his brother, for he was cast away. "I know not where it could be." 

  


"Fool!" Rumil hissed. "You must know! You stole it!" 

  


"Silence!" Haldir retorted fiercely, "I say I know not where it is and I do not lie!"

  


"You must find it! Find it, Haldir, or you will be forever in the wrath of Eru Illuvitar!" 

  


Haldir could not reason in his mind a way to free himself of his plight, and he collapsed to his knees, holding his face in his hands as he rued the longing he had felt for the beauty of the moon. Had he known what would have come of his wish, he would not have desired it, even if for a whimsical thought! 

  


"You have tampered with the patience of the Valar." Rumil said with a deadly whisper. "Are we not already children of Yallume who have been deemed a dark race? It takes only the foolishness of one to bring the demise of our entire people!" 

  


"Speak not to me of such things, or do you think that I do not know?" Haldir wept, salt tears running down his palms as he fell against a Mallorn and held his face in his hands to hide his shame. 

  


"You will be cursed..." Rumil stepped back, shaking his head as he ran his lithe fingers through silver strands of hair. "... you will not be permitted to remain as one of the Galadhrim."

  


"I will diminish into the south and east, far from the knowledge of even the Valar." Haldir's voice was a mere mumble, and the silence that henceforth ensued from nothingness was only broken by the rustling of leves in the wind. However, this slight breeze, warm as it was and comforting, was herald to grimmer things. A deep, terrible voice there was upon it, and it called to Haldir by his name, hailing him in the tongue of ancient elvish that had long since perished in Arda. Here is what the voice said as Rumil heard it: 

  


"Haldir of Lorien, you foolish heart, hearken now to my voice and listen with the intent of your life. You have committed a crime most terrible: you have stolen from me the greatest jewel that I have wrought to adorn the sky. Long had I sought to give the elves a jewel they would forever hold in their hearts, one that could never be stolen, one that would inspire their thoughts and dreams, but you have wronged all who dwell within Arda. From the deepest caves of the mountains to their very peaks where one could touch the sky your name will be forever cursed. In history you shall be known as a thief and a fool. The dark elves, your people the Sindari, will never be permitted to dwell upon green shores in the land of forevermore. You are cursed, and the Sindari are cursed..." 

  


With each word Haldir's heart wrenched in his breast as he wept bitter tears and cried out to the voice upon the wind, the very voice of Aulë, as it sentenced him toa fate worse than death. "I meant no wrong!" the elf cried, "I meant no wrong, for it was a whim!" 

  


"A DESIRE STILL!" Aulë's voice tore through the branches and once more the earth shuddered. 

  


"Pray, allow me to repent that I may save not myself but my people from destruction!" Haldir spoke true, for he knew of nothing he would not do to save his brothers from eternal darkness, and his home from peril. "I will do anything you ask if it will lighten my sentence to exclude the innocent people I have so selfishly wronged!" 

  


There was a fatal silence, followed by a humming in the earth as if it thought very deeply. Finally Aulë spoke once more: "The elves are the creation of my lady, and as she and Illuvitar love them, so do I, with the whole fo the Valar. For the mistake of one of Illuvatar's favored people I will not condemn the entire race. And I will lighten your own sentence as well, if you have the strength to right your wrong." 

  


"I have the strength." Haldir said quietly, his heart leaping to his throat as he listened. 

  


Aulë spoke: "To save yourself from banishment and humiliation, you must complete an impossible task. You must find the moon and place it once more in the sky. If you do this, you will be pardoned, and I wil forgive you. If you fail, you must never return to the forest of Laurelindorenan, and you must go into the vast deserts of Southron to live forever in solitude and shame. It is then your people will be lost to an eternity in darkness. What say you to this proposal?" 

  


"I will complete an impossible task." Haldir relied with a shaking in his strong voice. "If it will spare the rest of the Sindari, I will do anything." 

  


"Then you will find the moon upon the Anduin, though you may not know when you have found it. All that I may tell you is travel to the end of the earth, for the end of the earth is the gateway to the sky, and you are cursed with an eternity to spend searching for it."

  



End file.
